1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to a messaging solution for mobile stations such as cell phones, smart phones, personal data assistants (PDAs), pagers, handheld computers, phone-enabled laptop computers, and other mobile electronic devices, and more particularly, to a peer-to-peer immediate messaging solution for mobile stations that does not utilize an instant messaging server or the like that tracks state information, such as presence and “buddy list” information, for each mobile station.
2. Description of the Related Art
Instant messaging (IM) is a service that alerts users when another individual, such as a friend or colleague, is online and allows them to send messages to each other in real time, without the store-and-forward delays inherent in an electronic mail solution. With instant messaging, each user creates a list of other users with whom he or she wishes to communicate (commonly referred to as “buddy lists”). An instant messaging server keeps track of the online status of each of its subscribed users (often referred to as presence information), and when someone from a user's buddy list is online, the service alerts that user and enables immediate contact with the other user.
IM solutions are multiplying quickly and are showing up not only in land-line environments but also in wireless environments used by mobile stations such as cell phones, smart phones, personal data assistants (PDAs), pagers, phone-enabled laptop computers, and other mobile electronic devices. Wireless environments offer the potential for strong IM solutions, based on the time a user carries their mobile station with them. The number of available mobile stations that can run IM solutions is in the hundreds of millions.
It is well known in the art to port IM clients to a mobile station in order to gain access to one of the many IM services available. These services include AOL's Instant Messenger (AIM), ICQ, Yahoo! and Microsoft's MSN Messenger products. These products are known to have tens of millions of users supported by each IM server, and these communities are sometimes inter-connected to produce even larger communities. However, land-line and desktop-based IM solutions fall short of what a user that is often mobile wants and needs, namely good IM functionality wherever they may be with their mobile station. Additionally, the small screens and memories of mobile stations often result in a frustrating experience for people on the road trying to use IM. These people are forced to accept the poor performance and experience of existing IM solutions because they want or need to reach land-line users operating legacy desktop IM solutions and have no other alternatives to select from. There is thus a need for a better and more complete messaging solution (that enables immediate messaging like IM) that is designed for wireless mobile electronic devices that can take advantage of the “always on” nature of a mobile station.
Another major problem with existing IM applications in a wireless environment is that existing IM applications require the frequent exchange of messages between the client and server to indicate when a user is available. These frequent messages, which increase network traffic, are problematic for wireless networks because the bandwidth of a wireless network is very limited and the cost of data exchange is very high. This problem is further compounded by the reduction of mobile station battery life by transmitting lots and lots of small messages around to keep track of presence information, buddy lists and buddy status. These small messages are compounded by the fact that “presence update” information is being exchanged between correspondents constantly.
Yet another major problem with existing IM applications is the lack of security in the systems for corporate users. Although it is true that the exchange between users could be encrypted, this does not solve the problem of my instant messaging identity being passed around between users. Also, the problem of authenticating who is inviting me to IM with them has not been solved.
Another common wireless messaging standard is short message service (SMS), used throughout North America and especially in European China and India. This service also has many flaws. First, the addressing of each SMS user must be performed through their MS-ISDN, or telephone number. This phone number is extremely easy to pass around and it is impossible to verify the authenticity of the sender. Second, there is no implied presence, or any actual delivery information, so the exchange of information has a lot of risk associated with it. SMS also has no concept of a conversation that lasts forever, and in fact there are no SMS devices that keep long-term status information regarding an SMS conversation with another party.